like a giant flash drive

2010-08-29

It has easy drag and drop use similar to a usb drive. Works with consoles like the xbox 360.

Worked great till one 1 of my 2 died within 1.5 years

2010-08-29

I had two of these, just in case one goes bad. I back up on both of them and store one at work (in case of house fire, storm, etc) in a locked file cabinet and the other at home. I bought them both in late 2008. Well, after about 1.5 years one of them went bad. When plugged into multiple computers the computers do not recognize it. I will reluctantly buy another WD because it is supposed to be good quality. Seagate does not have a good reputation. And another off brand one died on me about 2 years ago and it was under a year old. Always, always back up in more then one place, no matter where you back up. All the other attributes of this hard drive are pretty insignificant if it dies on you. When it does work, it is very nice. I don't use the enclosed software; just manage my items like any flash drive/SD card. It took probably 8 hours to initially load 200 GB of photos, but once loaded the speed is perfect.

nice

2010-08-18

it's a external HD to storage data, as it's a bit slow when transfering data as it's USB, not sata.
despite this, it's very good. I bought 2 others

BEWARE !

2010-08-17

I've had this drive for 16 months, using it as an extra hard drive, as my laptop does not have much room. Well, it quit. I have tried several Data Recovery companies, and have been quoted anywhere between $5000 and $16,000 for recovery, and they all stated that there is maybe a 50% chance they could recover anything. It still has partial warranty thru Western Digital, but what good does that do me when I can't retrieve what's on it ??? They themselves do not do data recovery, and only Western Digital approved companies are allowed to touch it, or the warranty is void. Now I know better to have 2 drives, one as a backup. I LOVED it before this happened. Learned my lesson.

Died after 5 months

2010-08-01

I purchased two of these units to have multiple backup copies of files I've offloaded from my main computer. Good thing I did because one just died after 5 months and hardly any use.

Only lasted a few weeks!

2010-07-22

My 1TB my book essential only worked for a few weeks since purchase. When I contacted customer support, they did say that it would be replaced free of charge, but here's the problem...I just placed data on that drive that is now unretreivable. Those at WD said that I needed to use one of their data recovery services to get the data off. I called the 1st 3 on the list and their recovery prices were through the roof. I called a local data recovery place that was 1/4 the estimated cost of the other places. In calling back WD they said that if I did not use one of their "preferred" data recovery companies that I would void the warranty and they would not replace the unit. What a scam! The unit's already broken and should be eligible for replacement. It's bad enough they are not covering the cost to retrieve my data, but now they're trying to force me to use a company I do not want to use. Do I ever regret this purchase...

Broken files everywhere

2010-07-17

Bought this unit about a year ago and have had nothing but bad experiences with it. After a month of use files started getting corrupted left and right. Now it's practically useless. Highly NOT reccommended.

Great quality

2010-06-29

Bought 2 of these, had for year now, working fantastically, never a problem at all. Wouldn't mind having firewire but have to say I haven't missed it at all.

Excellent for Archiving or Backup

2010-04-19

This is my second of this model WD 1TB external HD. I have had the first one about six months and this one for about 3 weeks. I have found them to be reliable and quiet. I knew from reviews that I read before buying my first one that it is not terribly fast, but it is a lot of storage at a very low price. I use mine for storing video files that are typically 3 - 8GB in size, plus backup for critical files. It takes 3 -5 minutes to transfer a 4GB file to or from the HD. It is easy to install and I had it up and running in no time. I am using mine with Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

Works great, no problems.

2010-04-14

I ordered this to use as a back up for a school computer (Mac) and have had no problems with it at all. It worked right out of the box and no software was required. I got a great deal on it and couldn't be happier. It's quiet and seems fast when items are backed up to it. It never lags when opening files. I would recommend this drive.